Sometimes when you need to hear something good, the world delivers. The whole city felt cheered in January when Jeff Bagwell was finally elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, only the second Astro, after Craig Biggio, to make the cut. But to our mind, Bagwell’s not the only Houston-area great whose number should be retired.

There’s also Stephanie Baisey, the College Station nurse who performed CPR on a runner who went into cardiac arrest during the Chevron Houston Marathon; Kennetra Searcy, the local businesswoman/mom who was recently crowned the very first Ms. Black USA;  Kathrine McGovern, the president of the John P. McGovern Foundation, which made a gift of $20 million to the new art college at UH;  Roland Martin, the Yates High alum, D.C. resident and host of TV One’s News One Now, who was recently honored by HISD; and Elsie Hay Cook, the 79-year-old local knitter and former teacher who sent the internet into meltdown with a viral post trolling her online knitting group, some of whom had taken umbrage with her “pussy hats,” claiming she planned to send a pair of tiny knitted doll’s gloves to the new president. However you feel about her politics, you have to admire her chutzpah.